The Greek's Pregnant Bride

‘Show me what?’

He straightened his shirt, then turned back to face her. ‘I’ll take you to meet her. You can see for yourself why I don’t want my mother anywhere near our wedding.’

* * *

The car came to a stop outside an immaculate two-storey house in a quiet Athenian suburb.

No sooner had the engine been turned off than Christian got out, not bothering to wait for the driver to open the door for him.

The entire drive had been conducted in silence, Christian sitting ramrod-straight, only the whiteness of his knuckles betraying what lay beneath his skin.

It was a demeanour Alessandra had never seen from him before. It unnerved her.

That he’d cancelled his first appointment of the day had unnerved her even more; that, and the grim way he’d said, ‘Let’s get it over with.’

followed him out of the car and up the

all over

heel and walked back inside, leaving the

was pristine, a strong smell of bleach pervading

beautiful home was nothing but a carcass, sanitised functionality at its

refusing her hand when Christian introduced them, and looking through her when Alessandra said, ‘Hárika ya tin gnorimía,’— ‘pleased to meet you’—a phrase she’d

the immaculate kitchen, where the stench of bleach was even stronger. No refreshments

replied, his answers were short but measured. At one point he seemed to be the one doing the talking rather than the listening, his words making Elena dart

Alessandra had never sat in such a poisonous atmosphere as this, or

was something almost unhinged in Elena Markos’s demeanour. Her eyes were the same blue as Christian’s but were like a frozen winter morning without an ounce of

this woman made her skin feel as icy as Elena’s eyes. But Christian couldn’t leave it to imaginings. He’d lived it, every cold, emotionless

any wonder Christian eschewed any form of emotional entanglement when this was what he’d grown up

had not appreciated then exactly how great his determination must have been, not just to drag himself and his mother out